Squall took Quistis and Zell with him back to the orphanage. Being there again was a little too painful for Selphie, and Irvine had stayed behind to comfort her. And Rinoa, of course … she couldn't go anywhere, even if she wanted to.

Squall shook his head, trying to brush off the thoughts about Rinoa.

"Where could the White SeeD ship be?" Quistis asked no one in particular.

"Did Squall really talk to Ellone?" Zell whispered, a bit skeptical, and Quistis just shrugged.

Squall blocked out their voices and only listened to the pebbles and sand crunching under his boots as he strode up the path, entered the desolate building, and went back out onto the beach, where Edea and Cid were still talking.

"Headmaster," Squall greeted him, a little out of breath. "Please can you tell us about the White SeeD ship?"

"The White SeeD ship," Cid began, getting up from the wall he was sat on with a little groan, "Well, we first came up with it to protect Ellone from Esthar."

The three looked on at Headmaster Cid in silence, eagerly waiting for him to continue. The events that had happened over the past month had obviously taken a great effect on the Headmaster. While once rather sprightly and excitable, he was now often lethargic, slow and always quiet in thought.

"Edea served as the captain of the ship, but before long, many children were brought onboard, and it became somewhat of an orphanage," Cid explained, while removing his glasses and rubbing them with his red woolen waistcoat, before putting them back on. "Edea taught the children well, and they too were referred to as SeeDs."

At this, the three Balamb students turned their attention to the former sorceress.

"Those children are," Edea paused, trying to find the right word, "They are very cautious. They would never remain in one place for long."

"...I see," Squall replied slowly, his worst fears being realised. Ellone and the white SeeDs could be absolutely anywhere, land or sea.

"Oh yes, however," Edea spoke up, just as Squall had turned to leave. "Those children seemed to have taken a liking to Centra's landscape."

"Centra?" Squall repeated, hanging off her every word, hungry for any information he could squeeze from this conversation.

"Therefore, they may have stationed their ship by an inlet somewhere on the

Centra continent," she explained, then stood up from the same wall Cid had been sitting on and walked over to Squall, handing him an envelope. "Please take with you this letter that I wrote. With this, they shall welcome you."

"Thank you," Squall accepted the letter, and gave a salute. "Headmaster, Matron … thank you for your help."

Clutching tightly with apprehension to the envelope, Squall once again lead his friends back up to Garden, and they followed in silence.

Squall probably should have taken his position as leader and returned to the bridge, but he wanted to go back to his dorm, and he did, after telling Quistis to give Nida the message to head towards the Centra continent.

For the first time in days, Squall had a long, peaceful sleep. For the first time since the battle, he didn't have flashbacks of the fight with Matron, Seifer laughing evilly, Rinoa collapsing … Instead, he dreamt of an empty, sandy beach, waves lapping on the shore, and lush green land off in the distance. The scene then changed into a field full of beautiful purple, pink and blue flowers, petals flying off and swirling around in the wind.

When he woke up, his window was still open, and his dorm had become quite cool. As he reached up to pull the window closed, he noticed it was dusk. After gazing longingly at the open sea, and the dim sunlight that was reflected in it, he heard a cough behind him.

"Ahem," a female voice said politely. He turned around, and saw that it was Quistis. He wondered how long she'd been there, watching him.

"We've found it, Squall," she told him. "We found the White SeeD ship."

"...We meet again," a White SeeD said, with a little distaste.

"My name is Squall," he introduced himself. "We're SeeDs from Balamb Garden. I'd like to speak to your leader."

"I'm in charge," the White SeeD said bluntly. "State your business. Depending on what you say, we may ask you to leave immediately."

Squall paused and looked at the SeeD, dressed head-to-toe in rather regal white robes. Edea was right, the White SeeDs were cautious. Their ship looked fairly innocent, similar to a cargo ship, except with very decorative sails. And it was large; at the far end of the ship Squall could see more than one staircase leading upwards, into the main area of the ship, and then staircases leading down, into cabin rooms.

"I want to see Ellone," Squall requested, and the White SeeD reeled back in shock. Squall continued: "We pose no threat. Edea told us that you would be here."

"Edea?" the SeeD echoed with disbelief. "How?"

"Edea is no longer under Sorceress Ultimecia's control," Squall explained. "She is now our ally, so there's no reason for you to hide Ellone's whereabouts from us. We want to take Ellone back to protect her from Ultimecia."

"Thank you for coming, but…" the White SeeD frowned, "We have no reason to believe you. Please leave."

He turned on his heel and walked away, leaving Squall alone.

Squall sighed and placed one hand on his hip. He was tired … it was getting late, and the others had all gone to rest. He didn't blame them – the past week had been extremely tiring. But hadn't he, as the leader, experienced the worst of it? And yet here he was, explaining, investigating, doing what he could to find Ellone.

Squall was about to give up and leave, when he spotted a familiar face walking around outside a cabin.

"Watts?" Squall called out, jogging over to him.

"Wow! Long time no see, sir!" Watts greeted cheerily, polite as ever.

"Whoa! Look who's here!" Zone said, popping out from behind his friend. He was holding a few cards in his hand, they had obviously been playing a game. "Squall, how's it goin'?"

Squall nodded to him, with a slight smile. Surely Watts, who made a hobby of collecting information, had something to tell him about Ellone.

"Can't believe you're here!" Watts said, very excited. "Everybody doin' good, sir?"

Squall nodded.

"After you guys left, the Galbadian buttheads came after us, and we barely

escaped to this boat," Zone explained.

"I was sure we were goners, sir!" Watts put in. "Zone went nuts and was thinking about swimming across the sea to escape!"

"Hey, it was a plan," Zone retorted, defending himself. All you were doing was whining like a big baby. "'We're gonna die, we're gonna die!' And look who jumped in first! You, you numbnuts!"

"...I don't see how these wackos keep surviving," Squall thought, becoming annoyed at the useless chit-chat.

"So, how's Rinoa?" Zone asked brightly, and Squall felt a lump rise into his throat. "Where is she?"

"...Rinoa fought with us against Edea," Squall croaked. Sometimes he really hated being the leader, having to explain everything to everyone. "For some reason, she went unconscious after the fight. She's resting in the Garden now. I don't know what happened. We couldn't protect her. I...I'm really sorry."

"YOU SON OF A BITCH!" Zone exploded, and leapt towards Squall, yanking at the fur collar of his jacket and almost tearing it off. "What did I say?! What did I say, HUH?! WELL?!"

"Zone! C'mon!" Watts shouted, pulling him off Squall and holding him back with difficulty. "Easy, sir! Easy."

"I told you to take care of her!" Zone spat, dropping clumps of fur out of his hands, then wiped his mouth and pointed an accusing finger at Squall. "That nothin' better happen to her! SCUMBAG! You pathetic, lyin' scumbag!"

"She's not dead," Watts explained calmly to his friend. "They just dunno what's wrong with her, that's all. Ain't that right, sir? Squall would never give up on her. Am I right, sir?"

"We came here to get Ellone because there's a new evil force after her," Squall told them. He felt awful. "If we can get Ellone and Rinoa together, maybe...we can get Rinoa back."

"See, Zone?" Watts said gently to Zone, as if calming a small child. "I told you, sir. Rinoa's gonna be fine! She promised she would come back, didn't she? We all have to free Timber together. So don't worry, sir!"

Zone's nostrils were flaring, but he squirmed out of Watts' grip and seemed to have calmed down a little.

"All right," he breathed, still glaring at Squall. "But I'm gonna say it one more time. If something happens to Rinoa again, I swear..."

He pointed at Squall, then left on a staircase leading upwards, into the main cabin.

"Sorry about him, sir," Watts sighed through his nose. "Shall I fill you in on the information I've collected?"

"Thanks, Watts," Squall nodded. "Can you tell me about this ship?"

"Well, after this lady named Edea left, there haven't been any adults on this ship, sir. So far, I've only seen kids and guys our age," he explained. "Everyone here's an orphan, sir. Me and Zone are orphans, too, so we all kinda understand each other. Sometimes, the little ones look lonely, and that's always tough to watch."

"Is Ellone here?" Squall wanted to know.

"Oh, you mean that pretty girl, sir?" Watts smiled fondly. "She left when some other ships came."

Squall's heart sank into the bottom of his stomach.

"What other ships? Who were they?" he asked.

"There were some soldiers on the ships. I know I've seen them before," he paused and thought silently for a moment. "Esthar! They were Esthar soldiers, sir!"

"Esthar?!" Squall repeated. From his point of view, things couldn't get much worse from this revelation. "Why Esthar? What do they want with Ellone?"

"I don't know, sir," Watts shrugged. "But I think she was smiling as she left."

"What the heck's going on?" Squall thought in despair, sighing heavily and running both his hands through his hair.

"Everybody liked her a lot, sir," Watts told him, trying to help. "She was the one who found us in the water. We would've drowned if it weren't for her. She made us feel welcome, too. She talked to us a lot when we first came aboard. We owe her our lives, sir. I'm sure everybody's really worried about her."

Squall nodded.

"Where's the White SeeD leader?" he asked, remembering he had the letter. Surely the leader could tell him more about Ellone's whereabouts.

"The leader's usually in the cabin below deck, sir," Watts informed him, pointing to a downward staircase. "He really gets serious when it comes to Ellone. He can be harsh at time, but he's actually a good guy, sir. He helps a lot of people who are in trouble."

"Thanks, Watts," Squall said, and he really meant it. Watts left to go and see Zone, and Squall immediately headed for the cabin below deck.

"Here," he said bluntly, handing the envelope over to the leader. The leader looked up, slightly surprised, then broke the wax seal and read the letter inside.

"This is Matron's writing," he said, looking up. "She really gave this to you?"

"You guys call her Matron too, huh?" Squall smiled a little.

"Yes," the leader smiled back. "Ever since we were little."

"We were raised by Edea, too," Squall told him. "It was difficult to fight against her, but we did. Fortunately, everything turned out well. Edea is no longer evil. She's back to her old self again...the kind Matron we remember."

"Squall, thank you," the leader said, giving him a salute. "We owe you and Balamb Garden much."

"Even our salute is the same," Squall noticed, saluting back.

"Matron told us it hasn't changed since SeeD was established," the leader said with interest, then realised he was going off the subject a little. "So it says in the letter, you're looking for Ellone. I'm sorry. Ellone's no longer here. Remember we picked her up from your Garden near the coast of Fisherman's Horizon?"

Squall nodded.

"After that we headed east to get away as far as we could from Edea and Galbadia. Before long, we encountered the Galbadian fleet. They had a lot of ships. Obviously, they were searching for us. We should've been more careful. They pursued us in full force," the leader paused for breath. "Luckily, we were able to escape but, then our ship broke down and we were stranded. There was no way we were going to let the Galbadians take Ellone. Eventually, the Galbadians caught up to us and we had no choice but to prepare for battle."

Squall continued to listen eagerly.

"Then an Esthar ship appeared. A battle began between them, and we were caught in the middle of it. Then something strange happened," the leader spoke wonderingly. "Suddenly, an Esthar ship came up beside us and Esthar soldiers came aboard. They told us to get aboard their ship. It sounded like an order to evacuate. Of course, we refused. We didn't trust them just as we didn't trust the Galbadians."

Squall nodded. Sure, he could understand their reasoning.

"As the Esthar soldiers were trying to convince us, the battle became more intense. Soon they were forced to leave our ship. As their ship was pulling away, Ellone yelled out something. Then, all of a sudden, she jumped onto their ship. It wasn't like her at all," the leader remembered, looking confused. "To this day, I don't understand why she did that. After that, Esthar's fleet withdrew from battle and fled. After they left, we - well, it's a long story."

He decided to stop there, as Squall, deep in thought, could only handle so much information at any one time.

"After our ship is fully repaired, we plan to go to Esthar," the summarised, and apologised again. "I'm sorry, Squall. We couldn't protect her."

"So Ellone's in Esthar?" Squall checked for a final time.

"We believe so," the leader nodded.

"Thanks for your help," Squall said, then turned and walked back up onto the deck of the ship. While walking back to Balamb Garden, he stared down at the long wooden decking, and knew there was only one option for the group.

"Our next destination," he said to himself. "We're going to Esthar."

"Have you decided on a destination?" Nida asked, as Squall arrived in the lift.

"Esthar," Squall answered, smoothing down his jacket. There were two great big holes missing out of the fluffy collar where Zone had grabbed him.

"Oh man," Nida sighed. "Xenophobic Esthar. That area's terrain is not really suited for flying the Garden."

"So?" Squall asked rudely, looking up from his damaged coat. "Just set a course for Esthar."

"The Esthar continent is surrounded by a huge mountain range," Quistis put in bluntly, annoyed that Squall was taking his feelings out on poor Nida. Squall looked up. He hadn't even noticed she was there.

"It's literally hidden away by the mountains," Quistis continued, casually leaning her weight onto a safety bar near the control panel. "There isn't much contact with the outside world. That's why they're called the Silent Country."

"Garden can't fly over those mountains," Nida told Squall again, hoping he would take more noticed this time. "But there's one railroad line leading from Fisherman's Horizon to Esthar. Just one."

Quistis folded her arms across her chest and stepped over towards Squall as Nida continued speaking.

"Fisherman's Horizon used to have relations with Esthar," he was saying. "The railroad is all that remains."

"We'll wait until tomorrow though, okay Squall?" Quistis suggested. "We all need some rest, especially you."

Squall nodded as Quistis walked past him into the lift, but he had plans of his own.